Columns

The state of our state just shifted with the last election, more so than most of the other states that felt the punch of a Donald Trump insurgency. Here in New Mexico, we’ll be feeling it politically, economically — and culturally.

Many people my age are thankful for there being younger people around to figure out things that often baffle us oldsters. Case in point: We received a text message from our former foreign exchange students, Phaedra Wouters and Ana Granado, asking us to join them for a conference chat at 8 Sunday morning. This call differs from so many other kinds of calls we send and receive. We panicked, as the idea of being able to see the callers is a bit of a novelty.

Numerous questions about Las Vegas’ Water Enhancement Program have been raised at City Council meetings and elsewhere over the past six months. Clear answers have not been forthcoming. We hope the problem is simply poor communication vehicles, not that unpleasant facts are being deliberately hidden.

Last year I began my Christmas column with “When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” I added that here I can see the stars from my back porch. All I have to do is look up.

Since then we have moved from Ninth to Seventh Street. I can still see the stars, and now it’s from my very own front porch. The first porch I have ever owned — attached to a sweet little bungalow, of course.

Almost daily we come across — and many of us even use — familiar expressions that, when you come to think about them, really defy explanation.

As a person who’s made a living by using words, I confess I’m one of the biggest offenders; that is, I often use expression that I feel comfortable with and that I’ve heard before, but seldom am able to explain why I used such terms.

I may be an inky wretch by day, but more than that I’m a family man. My greatest role model, my father, was a family man; my mother a dedicated homemaker. And while they are gone from this earth now, I remember them as the best parents anyone could ever hope for.

Still with me are my five brothers, all with families of their own, an ex-wife and two daughters, and a passel of cousins and others in our extended family. Every year about this time, we all get together at a retreat center in the Ozark Mountains, in my native state of Arkansas.